After the 2004 election, exit poll naysayers claimed that the near-zero correlation between Swing (the change in Bush vote share from 2000 to 2004) and the 2004 Exit Poll Red shift “kills the fraud argument”.

The pollsters provided a swing vs. red-shift scatter chart of 1250 precincts. They pointed to the flat (zero slope) regression line as evidence that the election was not fraudulent (a positively sloped regression would have indicated fraud). But they were wrong in using 2000 and 2004 recorded vote data as the baseline in calculating swing. If they had used the 2000 and 2004 unadjusted exit polls, it would have shown that the 2004 election was fraudulent – by their definition. The pollsters used bogus recorded vote data to prove there was no fraud in 2004 – a circular argument if there ever was one.

There were nearly six million uncounted votes in 2000 and four million in 2004. That fact alone is proof that the True Vote differed from the recorded vote in both elections.

Using recorded vote swing as the basis to “prove” that the 2004 election was fraud-free was misleading disinformation. It was meant to cast doubt on the state and national exit polls which indicated that Kerry had 51-52%.

However, if unadjusted 2000 and 2004 state exit polls are used as a proxy for the True Vote, there was a strong positive correlation. Swing is now defined as the CHANGE in the 2-party unadjusted state exit poll share from the PREVIOUS election. Red-shift is the DIFFERENCE between the 2-party unadjusted state exit poll and the recorded share in the CURRENT election.

In the 2004 Exit Poll Evaluation Report, the pollsters “Zero slope = No fraud” argument was refuted by their own data. The WPE (Within Precinct Error) correlation matrix showed a relatively high 0.48 correlation for 2000-2004. The correlation was a much lower .05 for 1996-2000.

The E-M WPE correlations table below indicates that the 1988, 1992 and 2004 elections (Bush 1 and 2 were incumbents) were fraudulent. But unadjusted exit poll data shows that the 1996 and 2000 elections were fraudulent as well (Clinton did significantly better than his recorded margin). In the 1988-2008 presidential elections, the Democrats led the average unadjusted exit polls by a solid 52-42%, but won the recorded vote by just 48-46%, an 8% margin discrepancy.

RECORDED VOTE PREMISE FALLACY: “RELUCTANT BUSH RESPONDER” AND “FALSE RECALL”
The exit pollster’s initial explanation for the discrepancies was that non-response bias skewed the exit polls – the so-called reluctant Bush responder (rBr). When that argument was refuted, they tried “Swing vs. Red shift”. Finally, “False Recall” was promoted to explain the impossible number of returning Bush 2000 voters implied by the 2004 National Exit Poll. In each case, the recorded votes were used as the baseline, rather than total votes cast. Uncounted votes and an estimate of the True Vote were ignored.

To use a fraudulent recorded vote as the basis for calculating swing and then claim that the near-zero correlation “kills the fraud argument” is a logical fallacy. Elections can be fraudulent or fraud-free regardless of the correlation. The scatter graphs below kill the naysayer 2004 Swing/ Red shift “no slope, no fraud” canard.

1988-2008 UNADJUSTED PRESIDENTIAL STATE EXIT POLLS: DEMOCRATS WIN BY 52-42%
In the 1988-2008 elections, Democratic presidential candidates did nearly 8% better in unadjusted exit polls (52-42%) than in the recorded vote (48-46%). The discrepancies were due to a combination of uncounted votes and electronic vote switching. The uncounted vote rate trend has declined, but electronic vote switching has more than taken up the slack.

In their 2004 report, the pollsters provided average Within Precinct Error (WPE) statistics for the 1988-2004 exit polls. That report provided more than enough historical information to hoist the NEP, the pollsters and the naysayers on their own petard.

In 2000 the exit poll discrepancies (2.0 WPE) were much lower than in 2004. But the 0.38 Recorded vote correlation was higher than 2004. The True Vote correlation was 0.66. Unadjusted exit poll correlation: 0.57. There were nearly 6 million uncounted votes.http://richardcharnin.com/SwingRedShift_2000_image001.gif

In 2004, the average Battleground State Recorded vote correlation was 0.45; it was near zero in Democratic and Republican states. But the exit poll discrepancies (WPE) in the Democratic states were higher than the Battleground states – another refutation of the premise.

-Obama had 58.0% in the unadjusted state exit poll aggregate and 61% in the unadjusted National Exit Poll (exactly matching the True Vote Model).
-Kerry won the state exit polls by 51-47.6% and had 51.7% in the National (2% lower than the True Vote Model).
-Gore won the states by 50-45%, a 6 million vote margin. It was a close match to the TVM).
-Dukakis won the unadjusted exit polls in battleground states by 51-47%. He lost the recorded vote by 53-45% (7 million votes).